Month of Books: Day 18

Day 18 – Favorite beginning scene in a book.

Fahrenheit 451; Ray Bradbury

Read this book. Even if you read it in school. You weren’t paying attention then, admit it.

“It was a pleasure to burn.

It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on the wind turned dark with burning.”

If you’re going to protest censorship–book burning or banning–you have to talk about it. Censors often like to pretend they aren’t keeping anything from you, because if you don’t know you’re losing something, you can’t complain.

Also, this is just a good book. 🙂